Three.
Two.
One.
A large chime rings out across the city, perhaps the entire Harrow, and then there, on the platform, a blue swirling portal opens. The timer resets to an hour and seventeen minutes before it begins to count down again.
“How long it will stay open,” Havoc tells me helpfully. “A lot of people will come through this time.”
I hold my breath as the first Wastrels begin to pour into the Harrow, looking for the vibrant blue eyes of my friend.
CHAPTER65
VESPER
Hundreds of people pour into the Harrow from this Harrow Gate. Women, men, and children. The first people to come stumbling through is a family of four, two women and their children. The children can’t be older than twelve, but each of them makes it through gasping and clinging to their mothers. The second group comes through swinging, two men that immediately get swallowed by the crowd as they fight.
My eyes are wide. “Why didn’t Cipher drop us into New Babel?” I ask Havoc. “Why Verdant Nexus?”
“Because New Babel is more dangerous than the Verdant Nexus,” Havoc replies, watching it unfold. “It looks less threatening because of the city, but all this gold hides the evil underbelly. Many of these people won’t make it past the first day.”
I clench my hands. “We have to move fast if Dox comes through. She’s blonde-haired and blue-eyed, complete opposite of me.”
We all push our way forward, trying to cut through the crowd, shoving people out of the way. At first, we don’t make any progress, the crowd too thick. It isn’t until Stevie takes the lead that we start to make any headway, but we’re still a block away from the actual Gate. We’re way too far back.
I watch the clock tick down, halfway past by the time we’ve cut two third’s of our way through the crowd.
“Watch it!” A player growls and draws a knife. Before he can so much as stab me for stepping on his toes, Stryker has his hands around his head, his teeth flashing as he snaps his neck.
“Stryker!” I gasp, staring at the man as he drops him into the crowd to be trampled on.
“What?” Stryker asks, taking up space on my left. “He was about to stab you.”
“I don’t need your protection,” I grunt.
“I’m aware,” he muses, shoving more people away from me. “But it does not benefit me if someone kills the one person capable of removing my collar. No one else would dare remove it.”
Well, it would benefit him to kill me because then he could remove it himself, but for whatever reason, he hasn’t attempted. Perhaps, he meant it when he said he wanted me, to the extent where he’ll wait for a better opportunity, and me being dead doesn’t give him what he wants. Either way, I’m incredibly aware of his presence at my side as we push through the crowd. While the crowd moves for Stevie, they don’t exactly leave enough room for our entire group. Despite our aggression, they don’t move until we physically move them, and then plenty of them try to fight us as we go.
“I don’t see her yet!” I shout to be heard over the crowd as the timer ticks down.
“There’s still ten minutes,” Locke reassures me. “Don’t worry. She’s coming.”
But Havoc and Locke’s eyes meet, trading some silent conversation that I choose to ignore.
“She has to come through,” I whisper to myself. “Dox, you have to.”
Finally, with only five minutes left to go, we make it to the front and immediately have to fend off people when they start to press us against the platform, threatening to smash us into it.
“Back off!” Havoc snarls, swinging his sword and forcing them back. “I’ll gut every one of you.”
Stryker surprisingly takes up space beside him, forcing them back with his sharp claws, giving us room.
I drag myself up onto the platform and stare at the swirling portal, waiting, begging Cipher to come through for me.
“Please,” I whisper, my fingers digging into my trousers. “Please. Dox, you got this.”
More people come out and stumble when they see me standing there, but none of them are familiar. None of them are Dox. They leap off the platform into the crowd, joining the game, becoming players, but I only care about one. I only need one person to step through this fucking gate.
